Advice for specialized undergraduates August 21, 2009

Timothy Burke, a professor of History at Swarthmore, writes

[L]et’s just say that you’re a prospective undergraduate who wants to study one subject more than any other… [H]ere’s how I think a prospective who self-identifies as highly interested in one topic or subject ought to work through the questions involved.

First, are you sure that you’re really that interested in a single topic or issue, so sure that you want to make that a primary axis of your decision about where to go to college? Why are you that sure? Do you just like the topic or are you thinking already of a profession narrowly based on it? Are you sure based on an understanding of what a likely undergraduate-level curriculum around that topic looks like, or based on what you know about it from your high school experience? Are you making that choice with a wider awareness of the subjects that even a small college will offer to you that virtually no high school curriculum can focus on?

Second, are you SURE? Really? Then you’re a really unusual applicant. Most of what prospectives think they’re interested in is not the same as what those subjects turn out to be, and most of their interests are based on a very incomplete understanding of the range of academic subjects even within a particular discipline.

Third, if you’re really that kind of unusual person, absolutely certain that your first, second and last priority is to comprehensively study a single subject area while you’re an undergraduate and that this priority is unlikely to change, then: a) don’t apply to any small undergraduate institution; b) pick a place with as few general education requirements as possible; c) find a program in your preferred subject at a large institution that is stuffed to the gills with faculty and courses and make sure undergraduates with a dedicated interest get access to the most prestigious or high-powered faculty in your area of subject interest. The relative difference between one small college and the next doesn’t really matter to you if you’re that driven, because in either case, they’re going to have a relative paucity of resources in comparison to a large institution. You don’t really care about any of the other resources at an institution if you’re that focused: just your area of study and whatever direct supporting skill areas you need (say, language or quantitative training). An undergraduate applicant who is this specifically focused is really more like a proto-graduate student, and should use selection rules much closer to what a graduate student might employ.

This sort of student may be extremely unusual in history, but I would say that they are only somewhat unusual in mathematics. By time I got to Harvard, I knew I wanted to be a mathematician and was struggling to learn as much as I could, as fast as I could. I was not at all the most sophisticated student in my year, and I think that the top undergraduates and high school students are noticeably better now then we were then.

So, I thought it might be interesting to see which of our readers identify with Burke’s hypothetical student, and what they think of his advice.

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